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France Says It Gave Arms to the Rebels in Libya

PARIS — France confirmed on Wednesday that it had provided weapons to the Libyan rebels, the first instance of a NATO country giving direct military aid to the forces seeking to oust Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.

Col. Thierry Burkhard, a spokesman for the French military, said France responded in early June to a United Nations request, made in May, for a “humanitarian pause” to allow the delivery of essential medical supplies and other relief items to Libyan civilians in the besieged city of Misurata and in the towns of the western mountains, also under attack from loyalist forces.

“The U.N. request never actually took effect,” Colonel Burkhard said. “So we airdropped water, food and medical supplies” to Misurata and to the Nafusah Mountains south of Tripoli.

“During this operation, troops also airdropped arms and ammunition several times, including assault rifles, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades and launchers,” he said.

The French military assistance was first reported by Le Figaro, which cited unidentified government officials as saying that it was meant to help break the stalemate in Libya. The rebels were under sustained attack from loyalist forces until roughly the period this month that seems to coincide with the weapons drop. In what was seen as something of a mystery, they suddenly turned the tide on the Qaddafi forces and established control over most of the Nafusah Mountains region.

Col. Mahmoud Mosbah, the leader of the military council in the western town of Rujban, acknowledged that weapons were dropped by parachute near his town over a three-day period this month. The drops, all at night and totaling perhaps 36 tons, included mostly light weapons and ammunition, he said. He complained that rebels from the neighboring city of Zintan had taken all the weapons and were not sharing them with fighters in other areas.

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“The information I have is that the arms were for all the Nafusah Mountains,” he said in an interview at a local college, where he and other military leaders announced the defections of dozens of former Qaddafi army officers. The colonel said an intermediary told him on Wednesday that the French government was upset that the weapons were not being properly distributed.

His claims about the Zintan rebels could not be immediately confirmed. He added that his fighters had received some new weapons, including shipments of Belgian rifles from the United Arab Emirates and the rebel Transitional National Council in Benghazi.

On Wednesday, fighters from the mountain towns clashed with Qaddafi forces near the town of Bir el-Ghanim, which has been the scene of fierce skirmishes in recent days. The rebels are hoping that victory there will open the road to the outskirts of the capital, Tripoli.

On Wednesday morning, rebel fighters at a checkpoint about 15 miles from the town said that NATO warplanes had struck Qaddafi positions, and later in the afternoon rebels could be heard on a radio requesting trucks with heavy weapons, apparently trying to coordinate a fresh assault.

France, like the United States and Britain, is wary of the political and financial cost of an extended Libyan campaign and is eager for a decisive blow to bring down Col. Qaddafi’s government. After a burst of activity early in the uprising, rebel military units in eastern Libya are in a stalemate with the loyalists, and attention has turned to the western mountain region.

Colonel Burkhard declined to comment on the strategic implications of the assistance, saying that France was simply protecting civilians from harm, as mandated by the United Nations Security Council resolution authorizing the intervention.

David Jolly reported from Paris and Kareem Fahim from Rogeban, Libya. Maïa de la Baume contributed reporting from Paris.

A version of this article appears in print on June 30, 2011, on Page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: France Says It Gave Arms To the Rebels In Libya. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe